All or Nothing by Catherine Mann Read Free Book Online Page A

assure you,” he said softly, his fingers finally—thank God—finally skimming along her silky hair. “I consider the stakes to be very high. I am not in the mood to play.”
    “Then what are you doing? Because this back and forth, this torment, has nothing to do with peace.”
    “I have to agree.” He traced her ear, down to the curve of her neck.
    Her eyes slid closed and the air all but crackled. “Are you doing this to make me stay?”
    “I told you what I want. A chance for us to say goodbye.” He thumbed the throbbing pulse along her neck, his body going hard at the thought of her heart beating faster for him. “Leaving was your choice, not mine, but after three years I get that you mean business.”
    Her lashes fluttered open, her blue eyes pinning him. “And you really accept my decision.”
    “You were yelling at me about thirty seconds ago.” He outlined her lips, her breath hot against his palm.
    “Are you accusing me of being a shrew?” She nipped his finger.
    He forgot to breathe. “I would never say that.”
    “Why not? I’ve called you a bastard and worse.”
    “I am a bastard, and I am far worse.” He took her face in both hands, willing her to hear him, damn it, to finally understand how much she’d meant to him. “But I’m also a man who would have been there for you every day of your life.”
    She searched his eyes, her mouth so close to his their breaths tangled together. Something in her expression stopped him.
    “Every day, Conrad? Unless it’s one of the times you can’t be reached or when you call but your number is blocked.”
    Damn it. He pulled away, slumping back in his seat. “I have work and holdings around the world.”
    “You’re a broken record,” she said, her voice weary and mad all at once. “But who am I to judge? You’re not the only one who can keep secrets.”
    A chill iced the heat right out of the air. “What the hell does that mean?”
    “Do you know what finally pushed me over the edge?” Her eyes filled with tears that should have been impossible to hold back. “What made me walk out?”
    “It took me a couple of days to return your calls, and you’d had enough.” He’d fired the secretary that hadn’t put her calls through. He’d honestly been working at being more accessible to Jayne.
    “Seven days, Conrad. Seven.” She jabbed a finger at him, her voice going tight and the first tear sliding down her cheek. “I called you because I needed you. I’d gotten a suspicious report back on a mammogram, and the doctor wanted to do a biopsy right away.”
    Her words sucker punched everything out of him, leaving him numb. Then scared as hell.
    He shot upright and started to grab her shoulders, only to hold back at the last second, afraid to touch her and upset her even more. “God, Jayne, are you all right? If I had known...”
    “But you didn’t.” She pushed his hands away slowly, deliberately. “And don’t worry, I’m fine. The lump was benign, but it sure would have been nice to have you hold my hand that week. So don’t tell me you would have been there for me every day of my life. It’s simply not true.”
    The sense of how badly he’d let Jayne down slammed over him. He closed his eyes, head back on his seat as he fought down the urge to leap out of the car and shout, punch a wall, anything to ease the crushing weight of how he’d let her down.
    One deep breath at a time, he regained his composure enough to turn his head and look at her again. “What happened to the puppy?”
    “Huh?” She scrubbed the backs of her hands across her wet cheeks.
    “What did you do with Mimi after you left?” Mimi, named for the heroine in La Bohème.
    “Oh, I kept Mimi, of course. She’s with...a dog sitter.”
    Of course she’d kept the dog. Jayne wasn’t the kind of person to throw away the good things in her life. He was.
    He pinched the bridge of his nose, stared out the window at the churning night sea below and wished those murky